What characters and personas emerge from different doll sizes?

Well, MSDs, in my opinion, don't really have a persona of any kind, because depending on the owner the dolls can be at any age from a pre-teen (or younger) to an older teen. The only pattern that really seems to exist -and this works pretty generally for dolls SD and MSD- is that guys that are in their teens or older tend to have darker or more fantasy colored face-ups and lean towards a scene or emo style. Then girls seem to look more adorable, with bright more pink or red based face-ups. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule but there certain guidelines that people who own MSDs or SDs tend to follow.
This is just me being weird and annalyzing what I've noticed in all the pictures that I've seen. I'm sorry if this is off-topic.
I hope your paper goes well!!

 

My littlefee (Jovi) is about 6yrs. od, and her little sister (pukifee Ante) is on the way and she will be 3-4 yrs. old. They are both sweet, but each have a stubborn independent side... Like me!

 

I have 2 MSD-sized dolls, and for me I think their personalities stem a lot from their face sculpts.

For example, my male MSD has a very calm and sweet-looking face so even if I completely changed his face-up and clothes, I really don't think a 'bad-boy' concept will work for him. The whole 'calm' imagine came from the fact that really bright colours of eyes and clothes didn't suit him when I tried putting them on and instead 'cooler' and 'calmer' colours like blue and grey really seemed to accent him well.

On the other hand, my female MSD has child-like round cheeks (more than some MSDs), a slight smile, and looks perfect in bright and eye-catching colours like red so it just seemed natural that she has an upbeat and slightly more mischievous personality.

 

My characters run the gamet of people who cosplay or are otherwise geeks/nerds. I picked sculpts to fit the characters (& the cosplay they'd be doing). My SDs/SIDs/EIDs/Soom SGs are adults of varying ages (I've got a 70cm SoulDoll Key painted to look 50), the YIDs/50-60 cm dolls are teens, the MSDs are middle schoolers/pre-teens & the tinies are little kids.

 

My MSD girl dolls do not have a lot of personality. The personality changes with the outfit. One male MSD looks very much like Pierre Duport or Deport, model and film star in the Korean Funny TV series:"Tamara Island". The Pierre character, William, is a Dutch Salior of the 16th century that has been shipwrecked on a Korean Island of women abalone divers where round eyes and other strangers are forbidden. William is very sweet and innocent with a strange fixation on an oriental object.
My Yo sized Littlefees are little Fashionistas and go for glitter, faux fur and vinyle. Chole, Rachel and Leah are developing peronalities based on their coloring: Rachel, brown eyes, hair and a sad expression. a very sympathetic slightly, thougful little girl. Leach is a blue eyed blond and the leader of the three girls. Chloe: blue eyes light reddish brown hair. She is sweet and a bit of a mystery girl. She likes beautiful things. She arranges flowers, paints and is very neat.
Pipi is my newest Littlefee and a boy. Pipi has very big round blue eyes and black hair. He is in love with his blue Champ Convertible peddle car he inherited from his Grandfather. He peddles around the neighborhood waving at his friends. His friends yell back: "Get and electric motor." But Pipi is happy because he is peddling in his father and grandfather's toy car.
I have two Pukifee dolls and four face plates. The Mio face plate has very Goth makeup, so I think she likes spiders and has a bottled collection of preserved bats, frogs, etc. She feeds the spiders in her room and probably has a few dolls without heads.
Zio is much nicer. She has dark hair and light purple eyes. Her lips are pursed as if she is whistling or kissing her hand to blow you a kiss. This is a girl to get hugs from.
Luna has a pink wig and an outfit to match her hair, with pink candy cane socks. Her eyes are dark blue/grey and I am sure she likes to sit in the garden at night when the moon is full, taking a moon ray bath. She is sad.
I haveon order Fairyland Feeple Shuan who looks like Xena. So I guess she will be a beautiful warrior woman. I also have Feeple Chloe on order. I think she will be more interested in kisses than in combate. The Feeple men are a bit scary to me. Their sweet faces do not match their body builder bodies. When it comes to a warrior, it is the slender bodies that show light muscles that are the best trained and have the endurance. Refer back to "Tamara Island" and the characters William and Korean, Park Yu. Yes, don't say that too fast. "Tamara Island" is a very funny TV Series.
Hope this helps with your paper. Jolipat

 

Hi, it is me again. I just want to say that I suspect that for some people their BJDs are dream personas or lovers. For me, my dolls are my children, and I admit that I talk to them, but they don't talk back. My Minifee Shushu is an outdoor girl and I dressed her up in a sweater, shorts and boots. My dream, she was my friend and was to go backpacking with a group of friends.
I think that your study may include people's reaction to faces. I read a recent article that suggests that handsome men are better paid than plain men. I also remember that it is probably better to be a plain woman since they are often seen as more intellectual.
Also, I think that beautiful women are often mistreated by men in the work place because they make it hard for the men to focus on their work. My husband told me he had a problem with a fellow workers secretary because she brought on a strong embarressing response.
A BJD or person's face is very much what people repond too. A calypso song says:"If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, don't make a pretty woman your wife. I could also say the same for a beautiful husband. So I don't like the male BJD dolls very much because they are too pretty.

 

Like someone else said,MSDs are versatile and people either make them child-like or into adults. One of mine is my vision of my ideal self,a Mary Sue you might say.
My other MSD doesn't really have a persona,I just like making outlandish outfits for her.

I think of my Tiny as a child,even though that wasn't what I originally planned for her character. She's a sweet,innocent little elf who never grows up. I don't know but it seems to me that's what most Tiny owners do,especially with Soso.

 

I don't have any baby/child dolls.... the size thing seems to work backwards for me. The smaller the doll, the more oversized personality he seems to have.
I do have a few Tinies, but they're all sort of ageless characters, imps or shoulder-demons or urban sprites. My Yo-SD is a headbanger. My Lotus Nears are the good-and-bad demons who live on my shoulders and help me make decisions. ^^ The tiniest (10cm fetal-type Reitenshi) has enormous attitude. My 45cm Mini dolls aren't kids, either; the SDCs and JIDs are more like Eternal Teenagers (also headbangers XD). I have a lone 44cm AngelRegion Little Fair who's in his twenties, because his sculpt looks particularly young-old to me.

The 60+cm dolls all range from late-teens to early-thirties. It seems to be pretty random, which sculpt gets which age.... One of my Iplehouse Soo Ris is 27 (the bold one with the flashy faceup), but the other is 19 (the shy one with the natural faceup). One of my giant EIDs is only 24, and one of my scrawny prettyboy SDGraffitis is 32. The Volks SD13 crowd are all mostly some unspecified postadolescent age range between 17 & 20.

Personality also seems to be randomly developed, and unrelated to size. I have tiny Little Caesar megalomaniacs, and big gentle giants, and all manner of quiet & loud & quirky & shy types in between. Sometimes, I know exactly who a doll will be as soon as I see his sales photo. Other times, the personality type just seems to come to me-- I'll put the doll in just the right wig/eyes/clothing/etc., and it'll suddenly hit me: "Oh, THERE you are!" I am all about being randomly-generated.

 

My characters are all adults-- or, in Vince's case, ageless, with a persona that shifts to reflect what wig and outfit he's been put in, though I never think of him as a 'child' even when he's at his most childlike.

My only Yo-sized doll is meant to be an adult, albeit one who is somewhat elfin and childlike in appearance. Sometimes he enjoys that fact-- it means he can get away with his toy collection and love of cartoons, if he's passing for a little kid, after all, and is the right size to rock a dinosaur costume. Other times it bothers him to be treated as a child when he has the mental/emotional capacity and life experience of an adult.

And then my MNF guy is an adult. Though... perhaps not a very mature one. So the LTF is actually more grown-up, in terms of personality, than the MNF... which I think is an interesting dynamic, since he's smaller, cuter, and character-wise, a little bit younger (though not as much as he appears).

 

Well for myself, I don't actually own these characters but they are all adults and shelled in 70cm dolls and yet they still look maybe a year or two younger than they should be (well one of mine anyway). One thing I've always noticed is that if someone got into these dolls with an interest in anime, they tend to pick younger looking sculpts for "older" characters because they're so used to a drawing or style that they're desensitized as to how old the doll actually looks. As for me, I tried very hard to find what would be realistic interpretations of these characters (but I'm also not into anime anymore so that could be why).

 

In my crew:

70cm+ = tall adult
SD= standard adult
MSD = older child/preteen/very short adult (depending on maturity of sculpt)
Yo-SD= toddler/young child
tiny= baby under 2 years old

Personalities are as different as the sculpts! I have everything from sweet, innocent naive teens to guys that call drinking, fighting, and swearing a normal day.

 

Hi JPhobia,

^u^ We are always happy to see someone so interested in the hobby, but your survey and research are much better suited to a personal blog, so I'm going to lock this up.

I think that you will find the answers you seek with a little bit of digging, as everyone shows their love of dolls absolutely everywhere on this forum; a good place to start might be the discussion threads, which are already sorted by size. You can read through everyone's posts there and get a feel for the differences in trends without influencing your research subjects or worrying about psychology! I hope that you find all that you're looking for within our rich and diverse membership.

Best,
Laelen